Inferno
by Fueled By French Fries
Summary: Leo is taken back into the custody of an abusive pastor who runs a Bible camp. When Nico goes to save him, he quickly finds himself in over his head. Crossposted from AO3. Everything is fixed!
1. The Prodigal Son

Nico tugged uncomfortably at the edge of his collar. He was up to his eyes in people, body heat, and fancy perfume.

"You'll have fun," my ass.

He was wavering near a cloth-covered table of fancy little foods with that French name he couldn't remember, sweat plastering his bangs to his face.

He swallowed as someone bumped into him again. He shouldn't have come. Granted, Jason had invited him, and it would be rude to turn him down, but all night he'd been hanging out with Piper. And, granted, her dad had paid for the ticket, but the feeling of being alone among strangers was stifling.

Nico had his hair slicked out of his eyes with gel. He'd found himself some black slacks, a pressed shirt and a vest, but he still felt woefully underdressed. The cacophony of the ball's ambience. The sweat. The colors. The damn smell.

A hard, slender hand clapped Nico's shoulder, doubtlessly smearing something on his shirt.

"Hey, Olive Garden, you feeling alright?"

Leo's broad grin greeted him. Nico scoffed quietly. "'Olive Garden?'"

Leo shrugged. "I couldn't think of a better one. Seriously, though, are you okay?"

"No, I'm fine. Crowds just get to me." Leo offered a napkin, which Nico used to dab at the sweat running down his face. "Thanks."

"No problem. I don't take issue with crowds, but rich crowds… hoo boy." Leo laughed humorlessly.

Nico passed Leo a glass of punch. The red stuff, not that fancy coconut bullshit everyone else had. "I saw a woman with a mink coat. Real mink, with the head still on it. What does she think she's doing? It's the middle of June. Piper's gonna flip her shit if she sees that."

"Gods. One of my foster parents used to take me to these things. They're just as bad as I remember." An odd look crossed Leo's face. He put it to bed quickly. "Uh… Jason and Piper are busy doing couple stuff. You want to hang with me for a while?"

Nico personally didn't witness it, but he'd heard. Calypso left for the Hunters of Artemis — she chose the world over him, an understandable choice, Leo asserted whenever the topic came up. Nico sometimes came into Bunker 9 and bothered him just to alleviate some loneliness for all involved.

"Yeah. Yeah, that sounds nice."

Nico and Leo spent a good hour trying to shove as much tiny food in their pockets as possible. (The word was hors d'oeuvres, though Leo pronounced it "horse divorce," which didn't seem right.) It was a nice time, up until Jason stepped away to check on Nico.

"Hey, Nico! Having a good time?" Jason said, smiling, flushed. Nico had looked for fancy alcohol and couldn't find any, but the McLeans must have hooked Jason up.

Nico was getting tired, while Jason looked like he was just getting started. It made Nico feel worse all of a sudden, like he wasn't having enough fun. He patted his pocketful of tiny eclairs. "You could say that."

Jason grinned, flashed the "OK" sign, and walked off while drinking what he knew wasn't soda.

Nico tried to keep going with Leo, but eventually the guilty thoughts started getting to his head.

"I'm trying to get some fancy shrimp for Harley, but it's so close to the dance floor that people just stare at me. Can you use, like, Underworld magic to sneak over there…?" Leo asked, trailing off. "What, am I too hot for you?"

"What? What?" Nico's throat was too tight.

"You're sweating."

"Ugh, it's just… anxiety getting to me. Go on ahead, I need a second," Nico muttered, stumbling into the bathroom.

He sighed. The bathroom was blank white, way bigger than necessary, and thanks gods, cool.

A year after leaving Tartarus, Nico still looked terrible. His skin had gotten pinker and his cheeks were fuller but his eyes were dead-looking. The eyes of a corpse.

His hands shook badly, gripping the edge of the marble counter. Such things should be trivial. He should be having fun.

Splash splash splash.

Not getting any better.

Maybe it was time to throw in the towel, it was almost midnight.

He stepped out to tell Leo he was leaving — and ran into someone.

Nico reeled back. "Oh, I'm sorry—"

The boy he ran into blinked. "Are you okay, sir?"

Nico sighed, but not too hard, because if he exhaled too hard his lungs might've turned inside out. "I just need air."

He went back to the counter and stood there for a good minute before turning back to the boy. "…What?" the boy said.

"Are you going to use the bathroom?"

The boy started. He seemed to remember where he was suddenly. Now that he looked, Nico realized he was wearing all white, and his head appeared to float against the bathroom wall. Nico was the only speck of black in the room. He felt like a fly in a glass of milk. "Oh! Oh, I'm waiting for someone."

"I'm the only person in here."

"You are?" The boy opened each bathroom stall. "Ah. You are." He shifted anxiously, the papers in his hand crinkling. "…Do you need help?"

"I'm okay."

"Not that kind of help. …Hold on." The boy rummaged in his coat, pulling out a small orange rectangle. He gave it to Nico.

Nico squinted. NEW TESTAMENT.

The boy smiled earnestly. "Would you like to build a personal relationship with Jesus?"

Oh.

Nico tried not to crack up.

Don't be an asshole, Nico. He's doing his best.

"Um… I'm sorry, you… ha!" He disguised his laughter as a cough. "I'm already Catholic."

That was a lie, but he figured it would get the kid off his back. He didn't need a pocket Bible to tell him he was going to hell, he'd already been.

The boy looked surprised, but he bought it. "Huh. You look like a Satanist."

"I get that a lot. I'll tell you what." Nico fished a napkin-wrapped mini éclair out of his pocket. "Have this. Thanks for making my night."

The boy took the éclair and stared at it. It seemed to remind him of something. "Uh… I lost my father earlier. We're supposed to stay together; could you help me… find him?" he said quietly, tucking the éclair into his pocket.

Nico shrugged. He was feeling a lot better. "Okay."

The boy took him by the arm. "He's tall and has a beard," he explained, walking into the ballroom.

Nico glanced at the boy. He was painfully thin, with wispy red hair. "Is he a redhead?"

"Oh, no, I'm adopted."

Nico stood on his tiptoes to see over the crowd. "How tall are we talking here?" He turned to get an answer, but the boy was gone.

Nico went back into the crowd. Eventually he found Leo.

Leo was sitting at a round table, empty but for himself and a glass of red punch he was nursing morosely. "Hey," he said as Nico sat down next to him. "I thought you left."

Nico fixed Leo's tie, having somehow come undone. "Me? Leaving unannounced? Unthinkable."

Leo snorted. "Seriously, though. I was having fun earlier, but now it's just getting old." He looked pointedly at a couple making out on the ballroom floor, soggy with champagne. "If you're leaving early, take me with you."

"Not yet. I was helping some kid find his dad."

"Where's the kid?"

"I lost him too. You're taller. Tell me if you see anything."

"I can do you one better." Leo climbed up on his chair. He shielded his eyes in a gesture of mock concentration. "What do they look like?"

"The dad's tall and has a beard."

"So's Piper's dad. Tell me something else."

"The kid is a redhead. Weedy looking."

Leo laughed. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were talking about…" He blinked, like he was trying to bring something into focus. "About…"

Nico wanted to ask why Leo was stammering, but that was before the boy popped back into his periphery.

"Hey! It's okay, I found my father!" The boy looked at Leo, then Nico, then Leo. "Oh my gosh! I know you!" he cried.

Leo paled and put a finger to his lips.

Behind the boy, a man emerged from the crowd. Indeed, he was tall, so much so that the top of his head would be visible from the other side of the room. And he did have a beard. It reminded Nico of Chiron's beard. But above his beard, Chiron had kind eyes. This man's eyes held no kindness.

"Son, I told you not to run off," he said in a deep, booming voice. His eyes went to Nico. "I'm sorry, Ezra's always been very jumpy…" He looked up. His eyebrows rose. "Leo?"

Nico looked up too, but his gaze stopped at Leo's shaking knees, and he quickly helped him down from the chair.

The boy, Ezra, wasn't fazed. "It's just like you said! Leo's come back to us!"

Leo looked like he was going to vomit. "Um. Um."

The man smiled, like a cat playing with a mouse. "What? No 'hello father?'"

Leo gulped and squeezed Nico's hand. "H-hello, Father Abraham."

Father Abraham's face settled in a way one might call "placid." "We have a lot to talk about, Leo. I'd like to know what you're up to, since it's clearly more important than coming home. And who's this young man?" he said, pointing at Nico. Specifically, at the hand interlocked with Leo's. "I hope you're not giving into temptation."

"I… I… I…"

Leo' hand warmed dangerously.

Nico pulled him away from Abraham. "I'm sure he'd love to talk, but he's on some new medicine. It's not agreeing with the food."

Abraham frowned. "Oh. They're putting you on… poison. This is exactly what I was afraid of, son," he said, placing a hand on Leo's shoulder.

Nico swatted Abraham's hand away. "No offense, Father, but he's not your son."

Abraham nodded sagely. "Of course. Though," he added as Nico rushed away, "we're all children of God in the end. All of us."

Leo was hyperventilating, and Nico was trying to keep him from combusting in the middle of the crowd. A few people yelped when his bare arms brushed against theirs. Nico himself couldn't touch him for too long. His skin was like a hot sidewalk.

Finally, they burst into the bathroom. Nico ran the tap and thrust Leo's hand under the stream. He seemed to calm, fire hazard averted.

Leo's hair was smoldering. Nico cupped some water in his hands, but when he tried to put it out, Leo screamed. "No! Not there!"

Nico jumped back. "Okay. Okay, I'm putting it back."

Leo hunched over the sink silently.

"Are you going to throw up—?"

Leo covered his eyes and made a choked noise.

Oh. "Leo?"

"Take me home." He sounded as if he was being strangled.

"Home?"

"Camp. Anywhere. Just… I can't let him find me…" Leo moved to hug himself around the waist. Tears were rolling down his cheeks but didn't roll far before boiling away into steam.

Normally, Nico would shadow travel in a heartbeat, but… "Leo, is the rest of you as hot as your face is?"

Leo looked up. "What?"

"Temperature, Leo."

"I can't tell." He turned on the tap and ran more icy water over his hands. "Is this okay?" he said, holding out his palms.

Nico poked him. "It's better. Let's go."

Leo was shadowed traveled into the bathroom in Cabin 13 and sat on the floor.

Nico left him alone for as long as he could before he finally asked: "Why the bathroom?"

"The floor is tile so I can't burn it."

"That's very thoughtful, but I need to pee."

"Oh." Leo slinked out of the bathroom and hid in the corner. Nico felt terrible, but what could he do? This was a whole new frontier for him. Sure, campers sometimes asked him to teleport them away, but those incidents were often caused by otherwise harmless triggers. The sight of blood. Loud cracking sounds. Overstimulation.

This, though.

First, Nico had never seen Leo have a panic attack before. At this point, he'd seen almost everyone have a panic attack. Two wars over five years did that to people.

Second, he had a feeling that this wasn't a harmless trigger. Somehow, Abraham's presence was a very real danger to Leo. Something just didn't sit right with that encounter.

When Nico came out, Leo was sitting on the edge of the bed. "Feeling better?" he asked.

Leo shrugged.

Nico was quiet. It felt weird, asking the usual questions, because it was Leo this time. "How do you feel?"

"Um…" He glanced at the floor. "Kind of tired. Guess you can say I… burned myself out. " He laughed nervously.

"You can sleep here. I just have some questions. You don't have to answer but do me a favor and listen."

Leo nodded.

"Who's Abraham?"

He flinched. "An old foster parent."

Nico had thought as much. "Do you think he's looking for you?"

"He is looking for me. I ran away." Leo looked up, fear in his eyes. "Oh, god, what if he finds me?"

"Leo, he won't find you. He can't. A mortal won't be able to get through the barrier. You'll be okay." Nico patted the unoccupied bed. "Come on. It's fine."

Leo looked at the bed, googly-eyed. "Wait, you really sleep in that?!"

Cabin 13's beds were coffin-shaped. This unsettled the heck out of people, Nico included, because he hadn't put those in with the intent of sleeping in them. After the Titan War, he wasn't sure where he'd go, but it wasn't Camp Half-Blood. Funny how things change.

In fact, the whole cabin felt like an oven during the day. It was comfortable at night, but when Nico was trying to hide from nosy campers it was a pain in the ass. A black paint job is fine for an offering to Hades. For a long-term residence, not so much.

"Yeah - nobody wants to sleep in the coffin," Nico admitted. Not even Will. "Come on. I'll get you a blanket."

* * *

Rain was pounding the roof of the compound. Thunder screamed, and the ocean roared in response. In a couple of years, Leo would say this was the sound of Zeus and Poseidon arguing. But right now he was afraid to say anything, much less about a pagan god.

No. Leo wasn't here to blaspheme. He was here to fix the printer.

There was an office in the church, over-cooled and crowded with terrible props from old Christmas and Easter plays, and paperwork, and the printer's mangled output was sitting on the top, and though Leo didn't try reading it at the moment he knew what it was.

Ezra was shifting from foot to foot. Apparently Abraham adopted kids ages zero to eighteen, and Ezra was a case of zero. Leo didn't blame him for being like that. Horribly frustrating as it was. "So, it's always printed a little funny, but right now it's all blurry and blocky. So the tracts look really bad."

Leo opened the printer's top. "What do you mean, 'funny?'"

"Crooked."

Leo cracked the printer open, but not without issue. He had to angle his body in a way that his wounds didn't agree with. "I'll fix it in five minutes. Maybe three."

Ezra pushed his hair back. His hair was getting long. Apparently he had some issue with scissors that made haircuts difficult. "Are you sure? Because it looks like you just broke it in half."

"Haha. Yeah, I did." Leo looked at Ezra's panicked face and added, "I can put it back when I'm done."

Leo fixed the printer head, tuned up the rest of the decade-old machine, and closed it with staples. "Try it now."

Ezra went back to the office computer and printed the tract again. It came out perfectly. He beamed. "Thank you, Leo!" he said, patting Leo on the back. "I don't know what I'd do without you!"

Leo winced sharply. "No problem."

Ezra withdrew his hand. "Oh, no! I forgot. Does that still hurt?"

"It's, um…" He ground his teeth. "I'm okay."

"No, no. Let me get some Motrin for you." Real painkillers were hard to get, given Abraham's policy on medicine. Motrin barely took the edge off of menstrual cramps, so he heard.

Nevertheless, Leo didn't argue about it. Ezra rummaged in his pants pocket and took out a tic-tac box. He ate those mints all the time to curb his appetite, but he had a separate box for smuggling pain pills. Sometimes Leo wanted to snatch that stupid box out of his hand and swallow all of them at once. Ezra never had more than three at a time, though. He shook them all out and gave them to Leo.

Leo took them. "Ugh."

"Are you okay?" Ezra seemed genuinely concerned. Leo thought about punching him for a split second.

"No." He rubbed his wrists. "Abraham tried exorcising me again. I don't know what he's trying to do other than set another bed on fire. Awful waste of beds, if you ask me." A bitter attempt at humor was fired off and fell flat.

"Oh. Well, these things take time. A demon that's really deep in there could take years to remove."

Leo scoffed. "I can't believe this."

"Huh? What?"

"You seriously agree with him? He almost killed me the other day."

Ezra was legitimately taken aback. A part of Leo knew that it was unfair to take his anger out on this kid, but nothing about this was fair, and he was tired of dealing with some redheaded cog in a machine. "I don't agree with his methods, exactly, but I really think you have some problems."

"So you think I'm a demon, too?"

"I didn't say that."

"But you think so."

Ezra opened his mouth and closed it into a thin line.

There was a knock on the door. "Ezra! It's time for dinner!"

They both froze. Abraham's knocking was just a habit; they couldn't stop him from coming in and doing whatever in God's holy name he wanted.

Leo's back was to the door, and a firm hand locked on his shoulder. He began to sweat despite the temperature. "Ezra, you go on ahead. Leo is still fasting."

Leo's face said, Please don't leave.

Abraham said, "Ezra?"

Ezra was stuck. But only for a moment.

Whatever guilt Leo had stirred up settled fast. Ezra only gave him a passing, nervous glance as he walked out the door.

Leo hated Ezra because he was afraid of God, Leo hated God because He gave Abraham an excuse for his actions, and Leo hated himself because at this point, he was pretty sure God hated him too.

And Leo was alone with Abraham.

* * *

He woke up in a cold sweat, but the nightmare wasn't over yet.


	2. Paradise, Lost

"Abraham?"

"Teresa. Sorry to bother you this late."

"I'll say; it's three in the morning. What's possessed you?"

"A fiery little demon. Now, I need some legal advice—if a child in one's rightful custody goes missing and reappears, say, a few years later in someone else's care, does any court action have to take place, or can I just call the police?"

"…I would think the latter, but why?"

"You keep all the foster records, don't you?"

* * *

Leo was hyperventilating on the floor and he didn't know why.

He was huddled up in the corner between the wall and the side of the bed. He had a vague awareness that he was in Cabin 13, that he was safe, but it was hard to stay grounded. He had to think of anything else. Happy place, robot puppies, summertime, warm air. Leo rubbed his palms on the carpet and opened his eyes. One black carpet under him, one black wall in front of him, one coffin behind him. Yeah, this was definitely Nico's cabin.

One Nico in front, crouching down, suddenly. "Are you okay?"

Leo looked up from his hands. He couldn't sit on the floor forever, could he? "What happened?"

"You fell out of bed. I went to check on you and you were like this." Nico's face was scrunched up with worry. "Bad dream?"

There was an implicit request there. For half-bloods, ominous dreams were rarely just dreams. Plus, he'd slept in a coffin last night. If he were in school, this would be in his English homework. Question 3: What does the coffin represent? "The coffin is a hamfisted metaphor for Leo's incoming death by heart attack," he'd write.

Leo rolled his shoulders back. "Pretty bad."

"You want to tell me?"

Clamming up was tempting. But he remembered some advice Annabeth had given him: bad communication was the leading cause of death in ancient Greece. "It wasn't a dream. It was a memory." Leo wiped away sweat. He was beginning to cool to a comfortable temperature. "I guess running into... ol' Father Abe dredged something up."

Or it's an omen, was the unspoken statement.

Leo ignored that. "What time is it?"

Nico looked at the wall. "Too early to get up. Too late to go back to bed."

"There's no windows in here, how the hell did you do that?"

"Magic."

Leo sighed and leaned back further, bending backwards so his head was on the bed. "Guess I can't just sit here until sunrise." He stared at the ceiling. It shined purple-black. "I'm going to Bunker 9. Don't wait up."

Nico opened his mouth, as if to say something, but Leo closed the door before he could do so.

* * *

Nico spent all his free time in the infirmary. Usually he split the difference between that and the bunker, but what would he say when he did? Well, what could he say.

He wondered if Leo was okay. He didn't go looking for him, but he did wonder, and that showed character. Probably.

The infirmary was very stuffy and chaotic and hard to wrap one's head around. It was perfect for somebody who had too many thoughts swirling around. Worrying, fearful thoughts. And sometimes, if he got lucky, he'd get to stand in a spot near the window, and there would be a warm sunbeam.

He slid into a different headspace here. The kids still weren't used to his presence and flinched away when he was nearby. Maybe they never would get used to him. But y'know, even if they never stopped thinking he was a freak, they'd eventually get tired of flinching.

At Camp Half-Blood, you get some interesting injuries. You gotta love a summer camp with swords, spears, and a lava pit. There was that time with the knife that got so close to that kid's heart it wobbled with every heartbeat. There was the thing with the twenty-foot long tapeworm. The penis bottle incident.

And yet nobody trusted him. A whole year of bullshit, and nobody trusted him!

Except Will. Maybe.

That afternoon, he had mostly normal activity. The usual inhaler refills, stab wounds, convection burns.

Then there were three kids. They were playing basketball when a tree fell on the court. A couple of broken limbs (ha) and cuts and scrapes. Jason popped in, wearing dark glasses. "Hey," Nico said. He was carefully stitching a cut behind one kid's ear, holding the ear in place with tweezers. "Did you have a good night?"

"It was a good night. Not as good of a morning. I think I'm dying," he sighed, holding his hands over his ears.

A basketball passed through the space between them. The kid Nico was sewing up caught it. "No basketball in the infirmary!" Will snapped. He grabbed the ball and spirited it to a closet before continuing to set a broken leg.

The kid blew a raspberry.

Nico glared at the kid. "He's right."

"What are you going to do? Kill me?" he taunted.

Nico's eye twitched. He ignored him.

"What happened with you and Leo?" Jason continued. "You two just vanished around midnight. If it weren't for Piper's knife showing us you went home, we would've flipped out and thought a monster got you. At least warn us."

Nico paused. "What did Katropis show you, exactly?"

"You and Leo asleep in Cabin 13."

Another basketball whizzed past them. "Hey!" Will shouted. "Where are you getting those?"

"From YOUR MOM!" one of them said.

"Shut up, at least my mom talks to me." That was cold, even for Will, who could make like Canada at times. "I better not see any more of these, or I'm finding your ball stash and popping every single one."

The kids jeered. "I bet you do a lot of things to balls in your free time."

Nico clenched his jaw. Jason glared disapprovingly at the kid next to him, making him wither. Nico shook his head. "If you need something for the hangover, we keep Advil in the back."

"Thanks Nico," Jason said. "And, uh, one more thing?"

"Yeah?"

"Is Leo… okay?" Jason said. He was squinting in the light of the window, but it didn't hamper his look of concern at all. "He took off last night and now he's hiding in the bunker. Did something happen?"

Nico hesitated. He didn't know the details with Abraham, but a reaction like Leo's implied nothing good. "You'll have to ask him about that."

Jason's scrunched-up expression drooped sadly, almost but not quite relaxing his hangover squint. "I was afraid of that. Most days I have to pretend I'm the one with the problem to get him to admit anything."

There was a deep anxiety in his eyes that made Nico wonder how he'd figured that out. That wasn't the expression of a man who'd learned this gradually.

"…Advil's in the back," Nico repeated.

"What?"

"Hangover. You have a hangover. I have painkillers."

"Right, right," Jason said. He shook his head, as if to loosen something that was too tightly wound. "Nice talking to you."

Jason crossed the room so he was standing behind Nico.

And then it happened.

A kid hit Nico in the face with the basketball. He reeled back and landed on his ass. His arm jerked backwards, taking the cut ear with it, where it landed on the floor like a sad little pepperoni slice.

"Oh my gods!" The ear kid screamed, clutching his bloody, one-eared head. "Oh my gods!"

"What?" said Jason as he slipped on the ear, hitting his head on the rail of a cot, knocking him unconscious.

Yep.

Nico couldn't believe it either.

By the end of the day, Jason was laid up in a cot with an ice pack and the kid's ear was dusted off and back on his head. It was only a little squashed, but he acted like Nico had cast a hex on the basketball in midair, redirecting it towards himself and causing a hot thirty minutes of chaos.

It made people look at him in a way (a split second where he could see them staring before they nervously turned away, like his gaze alone could kill them) that made Nico feel like he'd shot up with ice water.

At dinner, Nico went to apologize to Jason. Often, he felt like he'd done so much wrong he needed to apologize for things that weren't really his fault, like this thing. Jason could've ripped Nico's ear off, and Nico would still apologize to him.

He was walking to Jason, and he was about six feet away when Jason shivered, unnerved, sparks flying off his shoulders.

Nico stopped in his tracks. Jason glanced back, at first fearful, but then guilty.

He turned around and went back to the Apollo table, where Will's brothers and sisters ogled him, but at least they didn't pity him.

After dinner, his anxiety rose to a level over his nose, and he went to the bunker.

Leo was perched on a stool, tinkering with something that looked like a power tool or one of those shoe measuring things. He smiled, a half-moon, not looking up at Nico but hearing the door creak open and his soft footsteps. "You just couldn't get enough, could you?"

"You aren't getting enough, either."

"Oh-ho, is that a threat or an invitation?"

"I meant food. You aren't getting enough food." Leo finally looked up. Nico frowned down at him, holding a Tupperware container of spaghetti. He didn't eat at Hephaestus's table, so he wasn't sure what Leo liked. Spaghetti was a full meal, right? It had carbs, at least. "I didn't see you at meals all day. Actually—I didn't see you all day. Period."

The corners of Leo's mouth fell at the pace of a frosted cupcake stuck to a glass door. Slowly, hesitantly, before hitting rock bottom. "Um… yeah. Can I have that?" he said, putting down his doodad.

Nico would've taken one of the magic plates, but they kept teleporting back to the dining pavilion when he tried. In his frenzy to steal food, he had neglected to bring any forks. Or baby wipes. Jesus. Leo's hands were black with grease. Nico gave him the food and nodded at Leo's toolbelt. "Does that have silverware in it? Can a fork be considered a tool?"

"I don't know," Leo muttered. He reached in. Sure enough, a dainty fork came out of the belt. "Huh. Could just be my definition of 'tool.' I never really thought about how that works."

He set the container on his knee, removed the lid with his left hand and held the fork in his right. The container wobbled perilously. Nico took the lid. "You better hold onto that food. I went to a lot of trouble to make sure you eat."

"And I tip my hat to you, good sir. …You know, I used to know somebody who thought language was a big waste of time. Reckoned everything could be summed up in one or two words. Randy—his name. Everything was a 'tool' to him. He'd call across the room for a 'tool' and I wouldn't know what the fuck he was talking about. He could be talking about a spatula or a screwdriver or a fork. And Randy would never tell me which one! I'd say 'what the fuck are you talking about' and he'd say 'a tool' and we'd go back and forth until he finally got up and it turns out the 'tool' is a hole punch. I fucking hated that guy. That's a massive oversimplification of speech—of people, really. We have so many different tools for different things that evolved over the years that just calling everything a tool kind of cheapens it. But I guess his thinking dug into me until it affects the magic in my tool belt. Asshole Randy's terrible philosophy actually helps me every now and then. I still hate it, obviously, but even when I hate it, I'm thinking about it. I can't choose what I think about."

Leo's rambling lulled as he twirled spaghetti around his fork, stopped eating, and began staring at it blankly. Nico was still holding the Tupperware lid for a lack of any clear space to put it down.

"This isn't really about tools, is it?" Nico said.

"Ugh, no. But I really hoped it would end up being about tools after all," Leo grumbled.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes," he insisted.

Nico clenched his jaw, trying to remember Jason's advice. I pretend to be the one with the problem. "Okay. I don't believe you, but okay."

Leo moved the spaghetti-wrapped fork around the container. It hit each side with a quiet, wet thump.

"…Jason got another concussion today," Nico said.

"What happened?"

"Punk kids throwing a basketball."

"Hit him square in the forehead?"

"No, he slipped on the ear I accidentally severed. …Yes, really. People won't quit talking about it. It's starting to get on my nerves." He paused and looked at Leo. Leo was smiling, but into his spaghetti. "Well, it's been getting on my nerves for a while now. But, uh… I deal with it my own way."

Leo scoffed. "The old 'picture everybody naked' shtick?"

Nico wasn't used to being to the center of the conversation. "No. I—when I was ten, I ran away from camp and hung out with this ghost, Minos. I won't go into detail, but he spent a long time hyping me up, making me angry. He wanted me to kill somebody for him. I almost did it. I was young and stupid, and he seemed convincing."

"But…?" Leo, very slightly, was looking Nico in the eye.

"But every time he almost won me over—after every other reason to say 'no' had fallen through, and I was beginning to think he was right after all—without fail, we'd walk past a black person. And he'd say something racist."

Leo coughed. "Holy shit, dude."

"I know. He'd start rambling about 'how lazy the Africans are' and I'd say to myself, 'oh no, I almost listened to this guy.' And I'd end up thinking, 'thank gods he's racist.'"

Nico paused. "Wow," Leo said.

"And that's an awful thing to think, but it was a good red flag. Something to keep me from falling into a trap. I still have moments like that. I hear someone talking about me and I think that they're right. Then I realize that the person talking is, I don't know, that guy who sells pictures of his feet on the internet."

"Greg the foot guy?! Does he really do that?"

"Yes he does."

Leo looked both amused and horrified. "Wait—"

"I just know stuff, okay? The point is, nobody's infallible, and chances are they have some horrible flaw that helps you ignore them." Granted, Nico didn't have dirt on every single person in camp, and a lot of them were good people. Great people. "If some kid is dumb enough to throw a basketball in a busy infirmary, I don't need to listen to any advice they've got to offer."

They were quiet.

Leo finished his spaghetti.

"I'm sorry you had to go to this trouble. Seeing Abraham really fucked me up. I'm thinking of things I haven't considered since I was fourteen. Actually—" Leo swiveled on his seat. "—are you Catholic?"

"No."

"But you used to be, weren't you?" Nico must have made a face that tipped off the answer. "Yeah, you were. You're Italian. You were probably Catholic. I was Catholic once. Abraham wasn't… isn't. He's evangelical or Pentecostal or one of those other crazy options."

"…"

Leo inhaled deeply. "I don't know. He was crazy either way. Kept calling me possessed. Sometimes I believed it. The things I saw as a kid—Tia Callida, the fireplace… Gaea. If I didn't know better, I could chalk it up to demons."

Nico had no idea what Leo was talking about, but he felt stupid just sitting there. "But you know better. Now you know why that stuff happened. It sucks that it happened, but you know it wasn't demons."

Leo suddenly pounded his hand on the workbench.

"Yeah, I know now, okay! That's why I'm pissed!"

Leo looked at his hand. He must have brought his palm down on something sharp, because blood trickled from it down his arm. Nico moved to help, but he waved him off. "It's fine. I'm fine. …The spaghetti was great. I forgot to thank you."

When Nico was ten, the first time he'd come to camp, he'd asked Percy about God. Percy had said something along the lines of I don't know, Chiron won't talk about it. Now go bite someone else's ankles. He never got around to asking Chiron, but he'd probably get brushed off if he did.

"What do you mean?"

Leo looked up. A little sauce was at the corner of his mouth. "What?"

"What's missing?"

"I wouldn't worry about it," Leo said, looking intensely worried about it.

Nico took the injured hand. Leo balled it into a fist, so he couldn't see. "At least let me look, Leo. This bench is covered in rusty metal."

Nico gently peeled Leo's fingers back. Index, pinkie, middle, ring, thumb. The array of tools and loose metal on the bench had cut his palm deeply. Leo whistled in faux surprise. "Would you look at that. Right in the middle."

"Gods, Leo, this isn't a joke. I'm trying to help you here." Nico always had a little ambrosia on him, even in relatively safe situations. He still wanted to be cautious. Nico looked over at a deep sink basin across the bunker, something he imagined was rarely used. "Come over here."

Nico took him to the sink. Leo's wrist was a jumble of friendship bracelets, rubber wristbands, and paracord braids, and they were all covered in blood.

Nico pawed at the tangled mass, and Leo offered no support. "What are you doing?" Nico said.

"Maybe I like these bracelets, okay?"

"Well, wash them. They're gross now."

Nico scraped it away and gave pause. Leo had scars.

They were old. They were brown. There were no distinct lines, so they weren't self-harm. They were burn scars, something seemingly impossible for Leo to have until Nico noticed that they went all the way around his wrist in a perfect circle.

It was friction burn, like you get from a rope.

"Leo—?"

"Don't."

* * *

Later, Leo was woken up at way too fucking early o'clock and told to come to the camp border.

* * *

In the morning, Nico consulted Annabeth.

Annabeth wasn't obligated to stay at camp, but in the summer she returned as a counselor. If anyone could help in this situation, it would be her.

Nico had no excuse to even be near the Athena table, but he pulled her aside anyway. "Can we talk?" he said. (The Hephaestus table was right next to Athena, and Leo wasn't there.) "I need your opinion on something."

They walked down a dirt trail that would weave through the campground and eventually approach the border. There was a cold fog, heavy like trying to bite through a wool blanket and thick enough to cut with a knife. Nico could barely see Annabeth standing paces away. Her hair was puffed up in the humidity. Even further away, campers were silhouettes of themselves.

Annabeth peered down at him curiously. "What's wrong?"

"I'm worried about someone at camp."

Nico told her what he'd put together, without naming Leo. He explained the incident with Abraham, the religious stuff, the scars.

Annabeth's brow was creased when he finished. "…Jeez." She was still trying to choose her words. Nico didn't blame her. What could you say?

"Even though he never said he was abused, I'm worried," he said. "Now that his foster parent knows he's in New York, he could get hurt." Either by Abraham's hand, or his own.

"You need to tell Chiron. He needs to know who that preacher is so he can be kept away from camp."

"I know I do. I just wanted to run it by you."

Annabeth was quiet. Her gray eyes were stony, gazing into the woods. They'd almost come to the end of the path, and the vague shadow of Thalia's tree stood in the distance, Golden Fleece flapping flaccidly in the wet wind. Annabeth muttered something about using Jason as a dehumidifier. "Does your friend know that you're discussing this with me?"

Nico frowned. "…I could've asked him if he needed help, but he'd say 'no.' He's like that."

There was a look in her eyes that made him think she knew who he was talking about. But if she did, she didn't bring it up.

"What do you think?" he said.

"Huh?"

"About the preacher. He thought that kid was possessed. And I guess that's not unreasonable, given what half-bloods are like." Nico thought of times Leo had scared him. He pulled technology advanced enough to look like magic out of his ass, handled red-hot metal with no problems, and conjured fire out of the air.

If Nico had encountered Leo as a child in Italy, maybe he'd mistake him for a demon too.

Annabeth's ponytail had pinwheeled into chaos, and she fixed it, the hair elastic between her teeth as she gathered it up. "I' seen somethin' like that," she mumbled.

"What?"

"Hold." Annabeth put her hair up. "About five years ago, Percy, Grover and I snuck into the Underworld. On our way in, we saw some greasy televangelist getting hauled into the Fields of Punishment. Percy asked why he was there if he believed in a different hell. Grover lobbed the theory that he was seeing something else, but we had other things to worry about at the time. Makes you wonder."

"Yeah. My family was Catholic, actually. I'm not sure how."

"Same, sort of. My stepmom's from a religious family. She got my half-brothers baptized and everything. Wanted me to get baptized too, but I thought it was pointless. I'm the daughter of a pagan goddess—if I didn't know better, I'd assume I'm allergic to holy water."

Nico snorted. He had vague memories, blurred by the Lethe, of going to Mass. It occurred to him how ridiculous it was. He wondered why his mother kept doing that—did she really hold onto her faith, or was she trying to keep up appearances? In Italy, you either went to Mass or there was something wrong with you.

The arch of the entrance approached. "Here's the end of the line," Nico said. "We should get back. I'll talk to Chiron—"

"Is something out there?" Annabeth said, squinting at the horizon.

Actually, yes.

Nico couldn't see where they were coming from, but there were red and blue lights coming from beyond the fog. He saw the shape of Chiron in his magic wheelchair, and Mr. D drinking his Diet Coke, both speaking to a blurry third figure.

Oh gods. Leo wasn't at breakfast.

Nico darted through the entrance, Annabeth yelling at him to wait.

The scene came into focus.

There were two cars parked outside Camp Half-Blood. One was a police car. The other was an ugly church bus. There were a few policemen filling out reports. Chiron and Mr. D were arguing with an officer and a woman in a suit who was waving a slip of paper.

Nico ran up to Chiron, whose face was ashen and pulled tight. "What's going on here?" he cried.

Mr. D responded for him, looking intensely irritated. "Little Miss Litigation here says we took in a camper illegally."

The woman, a woman wearing a business suit and a hard expression, sniffed. "Leo disappeared from our home two years ago. Next thing I know, my husband's telling me he's in the woods in Long Island. Did you know that he wasn't here with our permission? Did you even ask?"

"Ma'am, please calm down," Chiron said. "I'm sure we can come to an agreement."

"No disrespect, but I've been missing a child for years, and you're a pair of shady old men running an unlicensed day camp. There is no 'we' in this conversation," the woman insisted.

Nico gritted his teeth. "Who are you?"

"Can we please wrap this up?" she continued, ignoring Nico. "Leo must be tired from all this deliberating. I want to take him home."

Nico looked at the police car. Leo was in the backseat. Fuzzy and wide-eyed. Nico bolted across the lawn, but was caught by the collar. "Hey! Don't make this worse!" Mr. D snapped, acidic soda on his breath.

Annabeth rushed in. Mr. D pushed Nico into her arms. She held onto him, keeping him at a distance. "Babysit Nick Angel for me," he said. "We've got enough to deal with as it is."

Nico struggled against Annabeth's restraining arms. Unfortunately, those same arms had once held the sky itself, so the struggle was futile. She dragged him into the camp borders, where onlookers swayed in the fog, staring at the red and blue lights.

Nico strained against her grip. "Put me down!"

"Stop fighting! Stop fighting!" Annabeth demanded. "I won't let go until you calm down!"

Nico thrashed around. Annabeth held on for dear life.

The gathered crowd stared in horror as Mr. D and Chiron nodded at the policemen, making some agreement. Mr. D got in the police car. Chiron signed some paperwork. The police car drove away.

Nico went limp, his eyes tracing the red and blue lights until they disappeared into the fog.

Chiron, still in his chair, waited for the woman to drive away. The bus started with a sickening scraping sound, and scraped itself away. The sound stayed long after the bus did. Chiron then rose, his truncated horse's body emerging, his fake legs lying uselessly in the chair. There was clear dread on his face as he approached the crowd.

Annabeth squeezed Nico slightly tighter. Possibly to restrain him, or perhaps to comfort herself.

"Attention, campers. Certain aspects of Camp Half-Blood have come to mortal attention," he said wearily. "While they remain unaware of the camp's true nature, the Mist does not stop them from inspecting the legality of our operation. And… there was a conflict of interest that led to the removal of a camper."

The crowd muttered fearfully.

"Silence. Silence, now!" Chiron said. "We are fighting to return the removed to camp. Mr. D is going to the police station as we speak. In the meantime, we must take measures to prevent this from happening again."

Chiron cleared his throat. He had the look of a man about to throw a verbal bomb.

"All half-bloods attending camp without a legal guardian's consent must inform me that they are doing so."

There was an explosion of outrage. Of course there was. Half of camp had run away, been abused, or were orphans.

"Silence!"

There was no silence, but Chiron talked anyway.

"I am not returning any of you to your guardians' custody!" he shouted. "I am trying to ensure that those guardians will not call the police!" Because if the police got involved, Nico realized, Chiron couldn't do anything. The ball would be in their court.

But this was prevention. It was already too late for Leo.

Outside Nico's mind, the screaming went on forever.


	3. Abandon All Hope

On the bright side, Ezra had left his Christian screamo CDs on the bus.

Leo huddled against his backpack. He'd spent his entire day being hustled around by cops and dealing with the six-hour drive to Warwick. The bus was always a crowded swelter of children, but now he was alone. The temperature had fallen.

Teresa was driving. He thought of her sour face, and the bus's paint job—a deceptively cheery, rainbow-colored scene with cartoon doves, a rainbow, and the words "PLANT THE SEED OF GOD AND IT WILL BECOME A FLOWER"—and chuckled nervously.

Leo sat furthest from the front, bundled in his army jacket and looking at Haste the Day album art. Asking Teresa to play these CDs would be ill-advised. But it was a distraction.

He ran his nail along the ridged edge of the CD case. Rrrrrt. Rrrrrt. Rrrrrt.

His fingers started melting the plastic. He stopped.

He looked out the window. There was complete darkness. No one was around to help.

Leo rested his head on the top of the backpack. He wasn't gonna cry.

Back at the police station, he told an officer he was feeling sick and they let him go to the bathroom. He was lying. He just dry-sobbed in there for an hour before he managed to shamble back into the waiting room.

The bus made another scraping noise that Leo felt in his teeth.

It was a good thing he didn't throw up for real. He hadn't had anything to eat today except when they stopped at Arby's to use the bathroom. Teresa bought a burger to be polite, tried to usher Leo away quickly, but failed to do so before the cashier asked what he wanted. Teresa grudgingly let him get a small box of curly fries. It could be a while before he could eat again.

Leo wondered how his friends were holding up. He wished Piper were with him when he was pulled out of bed. She could've charmspeaked (charmspoken? Charmspake?) the police right out of camp. Jason wouldn't be much help, since the legal system wasn't something he could punch, but at least he'd be good moral support. How long did it take them to realize he was gone?

Well, Nico noticed near-instantly, but that was an accident.

Leo looked out the window again. There, the brief flash of a small town! Boom! Well, now it's gone.

Thinking about the last two days, Leo's chest tightened in embarrassment. He didn't feel completely comfortable near Nico—he was intimidating. Y'know. Despite the top of his head coming up to Leo's nose.

But Nico went out of his way to pop in and make sure he was okay, and whether that was a product of loneliness or not didn't matter as much he thought it would.

He just—

Leo didn't want to help Abraham by whipping himself. But after Nico protected him, he felt like an asshole.

One day, Leo snapped his leg while working on a grabber arm in the bunker and Jason sent Nico to check on him when he didn't show up for his training session. And the day after that, Will sent Nico to drag him to the infirmary for a follow-up. And the day after that… well, no was sent him, but Nico wanted to see how the grabber was going.

And Leo let him, not because he liked him all that much, but because he was afraid to tell him to get out.

Oh god. Oh god.

Leo looked out the window again and inhaled so deeply it hurt.

He'd seen "camps" before. Camp Half-Blood was a day camp, despite the combat lessons. Camp Jupiter was a camp in the sense that a military installation was a camp. He wasn't quite sure what to call this.

This here was a concrete-and-plaster monolith looming on the horizon. The compound was flanked by high walls and lamp-posts that washed those walls in a ghostly, long-shadowed light. The entrance gate was not visible yet, but the tower behind it was, watching through inscrutably narrow windows.

He couldn't see the cross for the trees, but he knew that was still there, too, bone-white arms outstretched. Waiting.

They turned into the driveway and went down the winding road to the gate.

"Welcome to Camp Gilead," Teresa muttered. "Or rather, welcome back."

A mile of complete darkness later, they approached the gate.

The trees hugged the wall so closely in this spot that there didn't appear to be a wall, except where it intersected the road. There, a tall arch opened, choked off by a metal gate. There was an entry booth where somebody was supposed to check your papers, but nobody was there at this hour.

Teresa leaned out the bus window and punched in the entry code. The gate rattled painfully as it pulled back.

They got off the bus in the parking lot, and Teresa dragged him by the hand. It was somehow even foggier and windier than it had been this morning, to the point where Camp Gilead seemed to be nothing more than a gray haze.

The reception building was outfitted with fake wood paneling. Leo knew it was fake just putting his hand on it. The fake wood was half an inch thick and the remaining six inches of wall was solid concrete.

The interior was outfitted with racks of kitschy souvenirs and camping supplies for the kids that forgot theirs. A t-shirt reading "SMILE! GOD LOVES YOU" hung inches away from Leo's frowning face as he stood at the desk.

Teresa rang the call bell. This, too, was broken. It made a sad little clink, the sound of a penny dropped in a bucket.

Nevertheless, Ezra heard and answered.

Now that Leo was looking at him up close, Ezra seemed healthier than he'd last seen him. His skin had gained a little color and his face had lost baby fat. Someone must have wrangled him, because his hair was short. But he hadn't lost that wide-eyed childishness to his demeanor.

He wore a pale green shirt. On the shirt: "CAMP GILEAD COUNSELOR 2012."

"Leo!" Ezra said. "Glad to have you back!"

"...Glad to be back," Leo said. You know, like a liar.

Ezra reached under the desk and handed Leo a blank form and a pen. "To think I didn't want to take the night watch tonight! I would've missed you completely."

Surprisingly, Ezra had no hard feelings.

Teresa took the form and pen from Leo's hands, untrusting of his handwriting. Good. The last thing Leo wanted to do right now was fill out paperwork.

They looked at each other for a moment, Ezra in his green Gilead shirt and slacks, Leo in his orange Half-Blood shirt and army jacket.

"So, what have you been up to?" Ezra asked.

"Nothing." Teresa finished the paperwork and scurried out the door without a word.

Ezra dropped all pretenses of professionalism. "Oh, come on. We haven't seen each other since we were eleven. You can't do 'nothing' in that timespan."

Uh, I found out I'm the son of a pagan god, got possessed for real, and then died a little bit. "I'll talk about it in the morning. Right now I'd just like some sleep."

A brief flash of annoyance crossed Ezra's face. The moment passed. "Of course. I'll see what I can do."

Ezra flipped through a binder of spreadsheets looking for an empty bed. Leo looked at the Bible-themed postcard rack.

"Quite a bit happened while you were gone," Ezra rambled. "Our popularity went up a lot, so it's not just our father and siblings babysitting a handful of kids. I've gotten a lot better at public speaking so now I'm preaching my own sermons. Good thing, too, because we have people coming in from as far as New Jersey. I'm just amazed how—"

The door jingled open. A tall, tired man Leo did not recognize marched in the door.

He gazed ahead, a jumble of sticks in his arms. The man had a dark, scruffy beard, and his shaggy hair was half bleached where it rested on his dirty green sweatshirt. If Jesus got frosted tips and became a hobo, maybe he'd look like this.

The man set the sticks on a tarp on the floor. Ezra whistled at him, which startled the man so much he sneezed. Leo had met dogs that did that. "Hey, Chicken Man! Do you know where the empty beds are?"

Leo raised an eyebrow. "You call your coworker 'chicken man?'"

Ezra shrugged. "He's never told me his name. He's never told me anything. The kids call him Chicken Man because he hangs out in the chicken coop when he's not working."

Indeed, Chicken Man had some feathers in his beard as he walked behind the desk and peered at the binder. Leo realized that Abraham must have picked Chicken Man up off the street. Leo had met a lot of mute homeless people over the years, and most of them weren't dangerous. Some were even good company. Personally, he felt bad for Chicken Man. Nobody deserved to put up with Abraham.

Chicken Man pointed at something, grunting.

"Cabin 6?"

He gave Ezra a thumbs up.

"Alright, thanks."

Chicken Man quickly glanced at Leo before doing a double take and giving Ezra a confused expression.

"Oh, yeah. New camper," Ezra said, scanning the paperwork mindlessly.

Chicken Man leaned over the counter and looked at Leo closely. He seemed to search for something.

He tapped the form Ezra held with a dirt-caked finger. Ezra looked up. "You want to read it?"

Chicken Man nodded.

Ezra handed him the form. Chicken Man ran his hand down the page, trying to find something, until he stopped. "Are you done?"

Ezra said, sounding amused.

Chicken Man growled softly.

Ezra backed up. "Excuse me?" he demanded, as if his coworker could answer.

Chicken Man snarled and bared his teeth at Leo like a dog about to lunge. There was a borderline murderous look in his eye. Any moment, he would foam at the mouth.

But he did none of those things.

Instead, he glanced at the ceiling, frustrated. Then he threw the form in Leo's face and stormed out into the fog.

Ezra sighed. "I'm sorry, he hasn't acted like that in months! I don't know what's gotten into him…"

Leo chuckled nervously. "Who knows. I'm a ladykiller. Maybe he was worried I'd make a move on his hens."

He had a bad feeling about that look. That wasn't the glare of a madman. Sure, Chicken Man appeared mad walking in the room—glassy-eyed and unfocused, staring through Ezra instead of at him. But the moment his eyes went to Leo, he seemed to wake up. There was clarity—and there was anger.

He wasn't sure what had triggered that anger, but it was something on that form. Leo had no idea what it could be. If he'd met Chicken Man before, he was sure he would've remembered.

That train of thought wouldn't end until Ezra led him to the showers and the water came on. "Oh gods, that's cold!" Leo yelped.

He froze even more when Ezra replied through the door, "What was that?"

"…I said, 'oh God, that's cold,'" Leo said slowly.

Ezra paused.

"I'll let that slide because we're alone here, but I better not hear you taking God's name in vain in front of the campers!" Ezra said with good humor.

Leo let his breath go.

There must have been a timer on the hot water heater in the compound. The shower felt like he was getting pelted with ice cubes.

When he finished, he found that the clothes he'd removed were mysteriously missing, replaced by a green Camp Gilead shirt and clean jeans. Leo called out. "Ezra?"

"Yes?"

"What happened to my clothes?"

"They're covered in grease. You can have them back when they're washed."

Ezra was right—Leo had been wearing those clothes for two days, and he'd spent the whole first day working. But as he dressed he had a sinking feeling that he wouldn't be getting those clothes back anytime soon.

Leo walked out of the shower where Ezra was waiting, holding the greasy clothes. Chicken Man was back by his side. He scowled deeply, but made no move to attack, which seemed good enough for Ezra.

Leo looked at himself in the mirror. The poisonous green shirt drooped unnaturally over his shoulders.

Ezra took him down the hallway. The cabins were in across the path from the showers. Beyond the reception building, there was no concrete. The cabins were just wood.

Ezra smiled at Leo every now and then, but that expression faltered at times. Like a man shifting a heavy burden in his arms.

Chicken Man was more open in his scorn, which Leo appreciated. He seemed calmer. Leo still felt pale eyes at the back of his neck.

"Here it is," Ezra said, saccharinely cheerful. "Cabin 6."

Cabin 6's door creaked when Ezra opened it. A few occupants blinked at the fluorescent, perpetually active streetlamp light before lying back down.

"Surprise camper!" Ezra whisper-shouted to them. To Leo, he said "If you need anything, holler" before breezing around the corner.  
Leo stood in the door for a moment.

Chicken Man rounded the corner slower than Ezra. When he finally disappeared, Leo heard Ezra say quietly, "I'll flip you for the jacket—heads, I get it…"

Dorm 6 had seven campers sleeping in the dark room and one empty bed that Leo slipped into.

He stared at the ceiling for a very long time.

* * *

Nico had done a lot of weird things, but breaking into a library was a first.

It wasn't hard. Breaking into anything was made substantially easier by shadow travel. He stumbled out of the darkness, still riding inertia from the jump, and he caught a bookshelf on the way down, knocking a book to the floor with a muffled thump.

His hand flew to his sword.

Twenty seconds later, he slowly peeled his hand away.

Nico was a lone demigod walking around an abandoned building at night. He was practically asking to be eaten.

Nico climbed over the circulation counter and booted up a computer. The fan strained, and the blue light of the screen pierced the darkness.

He closed out of the catalogue that popped up automatically.

Arguably, he could've asked Annabeth if he needed a computer. But she had her hands full with spreadsheets listing all the campers teetering on the brink of homelessness.

Besides, if he asked Annabeth, she would've told him that this was a bad idea.

Nico tapped his fingers on the hilt of his sword. Slowly (for Nico rarely handled keyboards), he typed: "FATHER ABRAHAM NEW YORK."

Google yielded almost nothing for that. Except two words.

"GILEAD CHURCH."

This gave him a more promising result. Gilead Church was evidently in Manhattan. He would like Abraham's home address, but this was a start.

The mousewheel clicked softly as he went through the images. There were many, many pictures of kids in green shirts.

Nico stopped on a picture with Leo in it.

It was a group picture. He'd almost scrolled by it, but he noticed the familiar hair and smile at the last second. He zoomed in.

Leo was maybe eleven in the picture. His curly hair stuck out in all directions and his green shirt didn't fit. He smiled crookedly.

A little too crookedly. Someone had clearly airbrushed out a bruise on his face.

Nico zoomed in on the shirt.

He searched "CAMP GILEAD."

* * *

Leo staggered to Sunday service.

It was summer. Most of the kids here now were not the same kids who were here when he was eleven. However, there was the occasional "long-term camper," a polite term for the children Abraham had personally adopted. Those kids were not happy to see the boy who escaped without them.

"Gods, I'm late," Leo mumbled to himself. Walking off a punch in the gut wasn't the best feeling in the world, especially when one was in a hurry. Spotting the open gym in the distance and hearing the swarm of children confirmed it. The glass doors of the only obviously concrete building were ajar; Chicken Man stood by these doors to silently judge the latecomers.

Leo cringed under his gaze as he approached. He waved, smiling sheepishly.

Chicken Man huffed impatiently. He held two fingers up, pointed them at his own eyes, and pointed at Leo.

Leo stared at his hand, encased in a dirty fingerless glove. Chicken Man's mouth twitched. One of his cheeks was red, like the sun had reached out and slapped him. Leo realized that this was the most complex communication Chicken Man had offered him. It was probably important that he respond.

"The feeling's mutual, Big Bird," he teased.

Chicken Man squawked in outrage as Leo scampered inside.

The doors Chicken Man was guarding were the side doors; they faced the same direction as the bleachers and were only slightly to the left of them. Leo knew this and took full advantage of it. He slipped in and dropped to the ground. Ezra was right. The camp had grown—so much so that kids were sitting on the floor in front of the bleachers. He huddled near the fringe of the crowd, near campers who wouldn't recognize him.

Abraham stood at the podium, too enraptured by his own gospel to notice. "…And the Lord spoke unto me in a voice so soft, and so terrible, yet inaudible to the unbeliever. And He said, 'cast off thy name, for from this day on and unto the hour of thy death thou shalt be called Abraham. And you shall go forth upon this tract of land and train the soldiers of God, who shall lay down their lives for their faith. And on judgement day, when all others are at the mercy of the angel of death, my children will escape the inferno.' Amen!"

"Amen!" the crowd roared back. Leo was a second delayed, making an echo of an "amen."

Then Ezra, scurrying in the back, rolled down the projector screen and began projecting the lyrics to the hymnal accompaniment. The crowd rose.

My God, my Father, while I stray  
Far from my home on life's rough way  
Oh, teach me from my heart to say,  
"Thy will be done."

Eight stanzas later, the crowd sat back down. They were silent.

A smile and a laugh entered Abraham's voice. "Children! Today is not a day of weeping and gnashing of teeth! This is a joyful day!"

The campers cautiously murmured. Ezra looked excited, bouncing his leg in the folding chair behind Abraham. Even the cranky Chicken Man moved closer.

"A prodigal son," Abraham said, looking pointedly at Leo, "has returned to us. Leonidas Valdez, please come to the front."

Leo's heart went cold as he walked to the podium. He felt like the eidolon had reached into him and taken control again, unable to control his legs even as he knew he was walking into danger.

Abraham's hand was on his shoulder. "Through the grace of God, this lost lamb has been delivered back into our arms. We must welcome him back into the fold. If you all will follow me to the back…"

Behind the gym, there was a slab of blacktop, and behind that slab there was a river. Leo's knees trembled. He was standing at the edge, and he could feel the vapor coming off the water's surface.

Abraham took his hand and pulled him into the water. He tried to wrench away, but the preacher's grip threatened to crush his wrist.

"Today, Leo will be returned to Christ."

Leo's legs felt like cold, wet sticks. If Abraham was a man of God, he did not want to see what that God looked like.

"Please repeat after me the words of the Good Confession."

This was not a request.

"I believe."

"I believe," Leo said quietly.

"That Jesus is the Christ."

"That Jesus is the Christ." The campers stared down at him from the blacktop.

"The Son of the Living God."

"The Son of the Living God." He imagined the gods staring down at him from the blacktop.

"My Lord."

"My Lord." He imagined Jason and Piper staring down at him from the blacktop. Disgusted.

"And my savior."

"…And my savior," Leo said, thinking of the horror Nico had shown the night he saw his scars.

And then his head went under the water.

Cold entered his lungs. He was kept under for so long that he felt his chest would burst, and then he came up, taking a wheezy, painful gasp of air.

Abraham abandoned him as soon as the spectacle was over. He dragged himself onto the riverbank. Nobody helped him. Nobody stopped him.

Leo wobbled onto the blacktop and fell flat on his back, staring at the sky. The few stragglers who hadn't gone back into the gym with Abraham either glanced at him with lethargic sympathy or didn't look at him at all.

Leo looked imploringly at the sun and prayed for help.

Jason. Piper. Nico. Anyone.

He felt like he laid there for hours.

But eventually, Chicken Man scraped him off the pavement and dumped him in the infirmary.

* * *

Right before Nico could click the first result, something moved in the darkness.

He gripped his weapon tightly. Oh, what he wouldn't give for night vision at times like this. Something was stalking him, yes, something that was walking one foot at a time and fit in a New York village library, so perhaps it would be an easy fight.

Nico slid from the chair to the ground. He knelt behind the circulation counter and waited.

He moved to the edge to peek out into the lobby.

A hand touched his arm.

He swung blindly.


	4. Ye Who Enter Here

Annabeth looked just like her mother.

A mortal would wonder what a librarian would be doing sitting in a reading chair at this hour. But despite the bookish glasses and modest outfit and the copy of "The Art of War" in her hand, Nico would recognize her anywhere. After all, he'd towed an enormous statue of her halfway across the world.

"Lady Athena," he said slowly. "What are you doing here?"

The library seemed lit with her presence, as if the books themselves were honored. But the ripples of cool air emanating from her form spoke of a less cheerful purpose.

Athena raised her eyebrows and closed her book. "This is a place of learning, and therefore my domain. I am more than within my rights to keep you from making a terrible mistake."

Nico wasn't sure whether to bow or be outraged.

He glanced back at the computer. "I don't understand."

"Allowing you to pursue your friend would pose a significant danger to yourself and others. It would be irresponsible of me to not intervene." The goddess's gray eyes bore holes into him.

Nico stood. "Significant danger? I don't see how a middle-aged woman with straight bangs poses a significant danger to anyone."

"You misunderstand."

"Of course I misunderstand. You're not telling me much of anything."

Athena pressed her lips together. "I'm not obliged to tell you. The plans of the Olympians are private matters."

His mind reeled. _The Olympians are in on this?_ "Wait. You're just going to leave Leo with some maniac?"

"The risk outweighs the benefits."

"What risk?" Nico demanded. "He built an entire boat to transport your statue. That should make him an invaluable asset to you. What is scaring you so badly that you feel the need to leave him behind?"

This was the wrong response. Athena rose from her chair, revolted by the nasty thing she had just found on the bottom of her shoe that had the gall to tell her off.

"Enough talking. I have business to attend to. If there are any other details you should be informed of, Lord Dionysus will inform you of them."

Nico was reminded that Athena was no more a mortal than he had been a stalk of corn.

"Now _go_ ," she commanded, and everything went cold.

Cold.

Cold.

Next thing he knew, he was staring at Percy's ceiling and his ears were ringing.

"Nico? Nico, are you okay? Do you need a doctor?" Jason said softly. Percy was squeezing Nico's arms and gritting his teeth, like he was resisting the urge to shake him until he answered.

Nico groaned. "What happened?"

Percy's bed was disturbed and the lights were already on. Jason was the only one dressed. Percy was in his boxers, and apparently he was still sore from the water bottle because he was wearing the ice pack sling on his hips. Leo had laughed his ass off while making that.

"You just shadow traveled in here and passed out!" Percy said.

"That couldn't have been shadow travel!" Jason insisted. "He came in from the ceiling! That's pretty well lit!"

Nico tried to sit up, but immediately got dizzy and dropped back into Percy's arms. Percy and Jason began fussing. "I'm fine," Nico pleaded. "Just give me some space."

When the world stopped spinning and Nico could focus, he realized the sun was peeking in through the windows. It was dark when he left the library. How long had he been out? "Nico," Jason said hoarsely, and it was then that Nico noticed how puffy his eyes were. "What happened?"

Nico explained his little field trip, starting with shadow traveling to the library and finishing with "and then she slam dunked me into this cabin. By the way, what _is_ Jason doing here?"

"What am _I_ doing here? I'd like to know what you were doing breaking and entering!" Jason demanded.

"I'm not just going to sit on my ass while one of us is in trouble!" Nico cried.

Jason's anger became muddled with confusion. "What do you mean, trouble? Is it Leo?" He'd clearly been worried all day, to the point where he was walking into walls because he couldn't focus.

Nico mentally smacked himself. He was trying not to tell anyone about his suspicions, since Leo was so secretive about the topic, but he'd gone and screwed the pooch. "Jason…" he sighed. "This is something Leo would want to tell you in person. But your friend's with some seriously dangerous people. I can feel it."

Jason's jaw tightened. "Then why doesn't Athena want us knowing where he is?"

Nico looked back and forth at the two. Percy looked paler than usual. Jason's eyes were still shiny with tears.

"I don't know."

* * *

Leo was vomiting river water.

* * *

"…And finally, camp is now on soft lockdown," Mr. D said at the tail end of the morning announcements. "While you brats are still free to move around camp grounds, no one is getting in or out of the border without special permission."

The day after Leo was taken away, the mood had gone from desperate panic to grim resignation. Campers' attitudes cooled off as they undertook the work of finding themselves and their friends a couch to sleep on in case the worst happened.

The large red stain on the parrot print shirt Mr. D had been wearing since yesterday contributed to the tone.

Nico was sitting morosely at the Hades table. Will Solace had made it clear that even if they weren't dating anymore, they were still friends and he was always welcome at Apollo, but it wasn't the best spot to brood, so he stayed here.

Athena had told Mr. D something. Even he looked vaguely bothered where he would normally be indifferent. Not like Nico was going to ask. His boundaries with Mr. D were far more restricting than with other gods—not because Nico respected him any more, but because he had to put up with the guy on a daily basis. If he said something to piss him off, he'd get dish duty for the whole summer.

Percy and Annabeth were speaking at the edge of the dining pavilion. They frequently cast glances at Nico. Annabeth dashed towards him. "My mother contacted you?" she demanded.

"Good morning, and yes she did," Nico replied.

"Why?" she asked, and when Nico tried to respond she added, "well, not why, since Percy kind of told me why, but _why_ that?"

"I don't know either. I was hoping you would have an idea."

Annabeth made a frustrated noise and half sat before rising again. "Am I allowed to sit here?"

"No. Go ahead."

She sat next to Nico and began speaking quietly. "So, recap. Leo is at some other summer camp, most likely with the abusive priest you described—if I'm reading into that discussion correctly—and my mother won't let you get him out of there."

"That's right," Nico whispered to Annabeth. Percy stared at her distantly, seemingly upset that he was being left out of the conversation. "Is there any reason you left Percy on the sidelines? Not that I'm complaining."

"I know Percy. He's going to rush in there if we don't keep him away from the situation. I don't know what to expect, but if it's bad enough that a god told us to stay out…" Annabeth trailed off.

Nico understood. His mind had run rampant all morning trying to figure out what Camp Gilead was. "I get it."

She sighed. "Maybe there's something more to this. What was her exact phrasing?"

"She said that letting me pursue Leo would 'be a threat to myself and others,'" Nico said, putting Athena's words in air quotes.

"And she said that you would be doing the pursuing? You in particular?"

"I—yeah, she did."

"So it could be argued that if someone else tried to get him, they might be okay?" Annabeth suggested with a hopeful twinkle in her eyes.

Nico reviewed the conversation. He couldn't remember anything that disagreed with her theory.

"…If and when I get arrested, I'm hiring you as my lawyer," he said.

* * *

Meanwhile, Leo was sitting at breakfast, casting jealous glances at his peers.

Meals at Camp Gilead were held in the cafeteria. Because it was a large building that could hold the entire population of the camp, this was concrete. Hardly any attempt was made to hide its artificial nature. The linoleum under Leo's feet was broken and chipped. The hard surface of the walls was painted in cheerful hues like beige, mauve, and fuck you.

Each table was circular, and had twelve fixed seats. Leo's table had three occupants. One was himself.

The one to his left was a kid he'd seen last time he was at Camp Gilead. Nancy had started camp just before he ran away and apparently she was still here. She was still a little shit.

The one to his right was a younger girl he had never seen before with wireless ear buds. Seemed odd that Abraham would allow that, but there were more pressing matters at hand.

All three of them wore a black badge. This meant they were all abstaining from food for "spiritual adjustment" reasons. No one wanted to sit with them because fasters were usually in a bad mood.

Leo managed to tear his eyes away from Ezra's mashed potatoes long enough to see Nancy's hand on his tool belt. "Don't touch that!" he snapped. He'd had the good sense to store that belt independently of his clothes, so Ezra hadn't confiscated it, and he was not about to lose it to some chick.

Scratch that. Most people he'd call "chicks" were very nice. Nancy was not a chick.

Nancy had a big greasy tangle of curls hanging down her back. Her eyes were sunken. Despite obvious heavy exposure to the sun, her freckles did not make her look healthy. In this particular light, they looked like liver spots.

Wait a second.

Chick magnet! Goddamn it, he should have said that when Chicken Man made it relevant.

Nancy blew a raspberry at him. "Finders keepers. I already took three screwdrivers out of that thing and you didn't even notice. Where do you get this stuff? Is there food in it?"

"If there were food in this I'd have eaten it," Leo said. "There wouldn't be any left for you anyway."

She scowled. "Figured you'd be full after what happened this morning. Looked like you swallowed half the New Jordan River."

"Well, surprise! I'm not, so can we quit talking about it?"

"You know what, if you're so hungry, why don't you run back to that Camp Half-Blood I heard so much about? Maybe they'll give you three hots and a cot."

Leo's face warmed. "Where did you hear about that?"

"Okay, maybe I ain't heard, but I seen it. On your dirty laundry. Only seen an orange t-shirt like that one other time. Are you crippled?" she said offhand.

"No! Why—"

"Could've sworn it was a camp for cripples," Nancy muttered.

The girl to Leo's right then spoke up. "Dang it, Nancy, I don't even know what you're saying and I still hate it!" she said in a slurring accent Leo had trouble discerning. "It's like you're grumbling at him in another language!"

"Then turn your hearing aids on!" Nancy said, leaning to where the girl could see her face.

"So I can hear you whine at that poor boy?" She shook her head and stormed off to a different table. In the distance, she took out a purple ball of yarn and knitting needles. Ever seen a tiny girl angrily knit a glove? If not, you don't know what you're missing.

Leo was almost in a good mood after breakfast and during morning activities. He was helping Ezra manage a reenactment of the story of Joseph for most of it, and in spite of Ezra he was having a good time polishing up the set. It wasn't the most technical thing he could be doing. But it was comforting.

Leo peeled grapes for an Egyptian jar labeled "corpse eyes" as Ezra pulled the curtains closed. Every building in camp had wide windows facing the center of the property where the tower was. Even the curtains wouldn't close all the way, leaving a silver of wooden wall visible.

Ezra rushed him backstage. The only person that needed to be on set was the guy playing Joseph. "Just wait back here. Maybe take a nap. I won't tell," Ezra said.

Oh, Ezra. Not evil enough to enforce the law. Not good enough to challenge it. And so it went.

Ezra went somewhere else while Leo went to the back room.

Camp Gilead was full of mysterious unmarked doors that were either locked or led to rooms with no apparent purpose. It seemed that each building had at least one.

Leo didn't care why the doors were there. Every time he saw one, he tried to open it, because sometimes there was something useful behind it. He knew what was behind this door. There was a bare bulb and a worn couch.

He threw himself onto the peeling surface of the couch and sighed. The stress and hunger was burning him out.

The patterns in the yellow wallpaper swam as he drifted off, looking at his exposed wrist, wondering what Nico had done with his bracelets.

* * *

Some camper saw Nico washing blood into the sink and left the bathroom as fast as they'd entered, a new rumor on their heels.

* * *

The unmarked door banged the wall, and Leo bolted awake.

Teresa was standing in the doorway with a wooden ruler in her hand. She had aged poorly over the last six years. Her hair had a stripe of white in it and the wrinkles in her forehead were more pronounced. Typically a middle-aged woman of her caliber would be subject to ridicule by Wal-Mart cashiers, much less a brigade of troubled children. Leo jumped to his feet.

"Figures I'd find you lazing around back here," she snarled. "Everyone else is cleaning up and you're asleep."

Leo clenched his jaw to stop it from quivering. "I lost track of time."

Teresa sniffed. That wasn't good enough.

Leo had spent his whole life training himself to handle precise and delicate actions. After sixteen years of existence, he still didn't have abs, which was disappointing. But his hands were steady as a rock and he was proud of that. He could do work so fine he needed a magnifying glass and could thread a needle almost as fast as an Athena kid.

That being said, Leo was terrified that Teresa might hit his hands so hard they would break.

Teresa finally got tired of hearing him whimper and left him to his own devices. At this point, he rushed off to the bathroom with his head bowed.

Leo's wounds were throbbing. His hands were bruised bloody, and the existing cut on his palm had reopened and gushed blood beneath the bandage. He ran water over his hands. It was bitingly cold and relieved the pain.

The water soaked the bandage, which was uncomfortable, but Leo didn't want to see the damage.

He tried to make a fist with his cut hand. He could barely flex his palm without agitating it. He could wiggle all his fingers, which was a relief, but he could barely curl them enough to hold a pencil.

He didn't want to unwrap the bandage, but a worrying amount of blood was dripping from it. He did so gently. His empty stomach lurched.

In the interest of good taste, let's just say the wound under Leo's dirty three day old bandage didn't look great.

Leo was still staring at his hand when Chicken Man walked in the bathroom.

He acted like he'd been looking for Leo for a while. Chicken Man beckoned him towards the door impatiently.

Leo held up his wounded hand helplessly.

Chicken Man huffed, irritated but apparently not surprised. He ran Leo's hand quickly under the faucet and slapped something from his own pocket onto the cleaned wound.

Leo raised his eyebrows. "Hello Kitty?" he asked, pointing at the new, very pink bandage.

Chicken Man only glared before whisking him out of the building.

Leo was led to a building at the back of the campground. It was a chapel, an old one with stained glass and a steeple and all the fixings. This was at the back of the camp and the trees largely hid it. Despite being innocuous, it was the building this camp was built around.

Near this church, there was a chicken coop. Chicken Man waved at the chickens as he walked by.

Leo was slid between the oak doors as Chicken Man stayed outside. Abraham was in the front pew, facing the stained glass window opposite the doors.

Leo tried to pull Chicken Man in through the doors, but he resisted.

Leo silently asked why.

Chicken Man shook his head. He pointed at Leo and at the chapel hall. He made an "ok" sign.

Leo mouthed, "he'll hurt me."

Chicken Man shook his head and made the ok sign again before leaving.

Leo was alone with Abraham.

He tentatively stepped inside. The carpet muffled his footsteps. The house lights were off; only sunlight streamed through the windows, dyed by the colored glass and bathing the sanctuary in soft light.

Abraham did not turn to face Leo. This made Leo even more anxious. Abraham had a special place for exorcism and this wasn't it. Actually, Abraham didn't use the chapel at all. He ran a whole church in Manhattan. What would be the point?

Leo slowly approached the pew. Abraham was reading a newspaper. "LION MYSTERIOUSLY APPEARS IN POLICE STATION, MAULS 5," the headline claimed. Abraham did not look up until Leo cleared his throat.

Abraham looked up. "Leo," he said, putting the paper away. "Good to have you back. I hope you'll forgive me for the incident this morning. I got so caught up in the excitement I almost forgot to let you back up."

Abraham laughed. Leo didn't.

"Well. In any case, it was a relief to see you again. We need more good brains in this place. Ezra's a sweet kid, but bless his heart, he fell out of his mother's birth canal head first." He sighed.

Leo was still silent.

Abraham stopped laughing. "…Don't tell me you're still possessed."

"I'm not possessed. I was never possessed," Leo said.

"What else do you call screaming in a foreign language while lighting things on fire, son?"

Leo paused to think of a convincingly jokey answer. "Chemistry class?" he said feebly.

Abraham laughed again, but it was just a breath of recirculated air. "Leo, Leo. You were such a nice kid in the beginning. What happened there?"

Leo clenched his still functioning fist. He'd been a child reeling from the death of his mother when he first came here. He bought blindly into the idea that God would help guide him through this terrible world. He got hooked onto the bait like so many other fish.

But Leo wasn't a fish, and he wasn't a child, and Abraham did not deserve to be a father.

"I saw through your bullshit," he said calmly.

Abraham frowned. "You're leaving me no option but to continue your treatment. I'd hoped you would find God's light on your own, but that clearly hasn't happened."

"Sure hasn't."

"Don't interrupt me!" Abraham barked, red with rage.

Even though Abraham was seated lower than him, Leo felt very small.

Abraham seemed to count to ten. "…How about we just pray about it? Get this thing off on the right foot."

Leo relaxed a little. This was not the most distressing outcome that could've happened.

Abraham placed his hands on Leo's shoulders and bowed his head. Leo followed suit. "Heavenly father, please guide Leo on his path to atonement. He knows not what he says." Leo did not close his eyes. Abraham did.

Leo stared at the carpet until the prayer ended and Abraham let him leave.

When Leo walked back, it was after lunch and Chicken Man was lying face down in the grass.

Leo approached cautiously and with a big stick. If he wasn't okay, Leo did not want to touch his corpse barehanded. He had his limbs splayed out in such a way.

Luckily Chicken Man was not dead, and was very angry that Leo chose to wake him by hitting him in the stomach with a tree branch. "Okay! Okay, I'm sorry!" Leo shouted as Chicken Man chased him away.

Leo managed to run into Nancy again in the reception building. They were shredding old documents, a task that required minimal surveillance and thus attracted unsavory conversation.

"So I been thinking," Nancy said, a greasy stand of hair in her mouth. "And I think you and I should look over each other's stashes."

"Our stashes?" This was happening in the back of the building. Leo could see the front desk from here. He was tempted to burn the paper instead of fumbling with his bruised fingers, but he wasn't sure what Nancy would see if he did. The Mist was always iffy with his powers. Sometimes mortals would see no fire at all, or maybe they'd see fire with no apparent source.

"Yeah, the contraband we both have. I grab all my shit off other people. I don't know where you get yours, but if you got any more screwdrivers I'll turn a blind eye."

"Why do you need screwdrivers?"

"What else can I give the good women of Camp Gilly? I can't just carve a dick in wood shop."

"Oh."

"Yeah, _oh._ I got porn, cigarettes, Harry Potter books," Nancy said, counting on her fingers. "Y'know, all the good stuff the church doesn't want you to have. I owe you some merch. So what'll it be?"

"Annabeth."

"What?"

Leo leaned to look out the door.

Annabeth was standing at the reception desk of Camp Gilead, wearing heavy makeup, but still definitely herself. She was ringing (for a certain value of "ring") the call bell.

Ezra came in from a separate room to answer. "Yes?"

"Hi, I'm Ann," Annabeth said in her best airheaded voice. "How do I go about applying for a job here?"


	5. Epistles I

(Found in Hazel Levesque's pocket.)

Dear Hazel,

You've probably heard about what's happening on the Greek side by now, but in case you haven't, somebody's trying to sue Camp Half-Blood. What you probably haven't heard is that the same people have kidnapped Leo.

It's a long and complicated story (that I can't discuss over Iris Messaging because those lines aren't secure) but here's what you need to know.

1\. Leo is in a Christian summer camp called Camp Gilead. DO NOT try breaking him out. The gods have some stake in the situation and I need everyone to hold their horses until we figure out what it is.

2\. By the time this letter gets to you, Annabeth will be trying to infiltrate Gilead. We don't know what's in there, but if it gets nasty, I'd like to have you on standby. Show Reyna this and ask for leave to Camp Half-Blood.

3\. CHB is on lockdown, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

4\. The ongoing legal battle means Greek campers are sneaking into the woods to run for New Rome. This is insanely risky and Chiron is unlikely to admit it's happening. Tell Reyna so she can do something about it.

5\. And I don't mean to be alarmist, but BE PREPARED FOR THE WORST.

Leo was taken to Camp Gilead by a legal guardian he ran away from. A Misted sheet of paper should have solved the problem, but it didn't. Now Chiron is flipping out and gods are popping out of the woodwork to tell me to stay away from this random mortal summer camp. Something's not adding up.

I'm not sure why, but Annabeth wants some records from New Rome's archives. I hate dumping my dirty work on you but I can't leave camp without raising the suspicions of at least two different gods. It should be available in the local library. Ask for papers on the "Twilight Zone hypothesis" under the name Sweetwater.

The Greeks are doing everything we can, but if it's not enough, we need to know we've got Rome's support.

Sincerely,

Nico di Angelo

* * *

(Found in Cabin 13's desk drawer, Camp Half-Blood.)

Dear Nico,

I have to say I agree with you. Reyna and Frank are terribly rattled and they refuse to tell anyone why.

They're reviewing my request for leave. The warning about the Greek refugees was better received; we're setting up temporary shelters and looking for the missing campers.

I found the records for you, too, though it was no small feat. The new augur tried to block me. Or, rather, the old augur! Miss Lucretia came out of retirement in absence of another trained augur. She's every bit as stubborn as her grandson was.

She checked them out of the library before I could. When I went to ask when she would finish with them, she threw a hissy fit. Said the gods told her I couldn't have the records.

I eventually wheedled them away from her, but those words trouble me. Of course Minerva didn't appear out of the ether to shoo me away; that isn't her way. But I'd be very careful with these papers, Nico.

They should be in this same envelope. Use them wisely.

Love,

Hazel

* * *

(Excerpt from documents found in open manila envelope on Cabin 13 desk, Camp Half-Blood.)

Here's a question you've probably heard at least once: "Gods are real?"

Many feel that this is a stupid question. I don't think it's a stupid question, per say. It's just the wrong question. Gods do in fact walk among us; this is just a fact of life for Romans. However, the same people who ask the above question tend to ask an even better question that often flies under the radar: "How?"

How, then, does a god come into existence? Until 1984, all we could do to answer this question was guess. Gods were the shadows on the wall of the Platonic cave. In 1984, however, my team snuck a peek at what cast those shadows.

The experiment was inspired by a late-night viewing of the Twilight Zone episode "Perchance To Dream." The protagonist suffers from an overactive imagination. He relates an anecdote about a picture of a sailboat that hung in his childhood home, which his mother told him would move if he stared at it long enough. And it did.

A few days after watching the Twilight Zone, I and a few friends went to a garage sale where we found a painting of a sailboat. I joked that if we stared at it long enough, it would move. And it did. There was nothing unusual about that on its own. It was an optical illusion.

But then other passersby who didn't even hear the conversation started seeing it move. It moved the moment they saw it, as if it had never stopped.

I ran tests on that painting. There was nothing inherently magical about it. Then it occurred to me: the painting only moved after I told people it moved.

We got ahold of another picture of a sailboat. Similar, but not the exact same. We brought in one group of mortals to look at the boat, and we said "This boat will move if you look at it long enough."

After an hour, a second group was brought in and we asked what they saw.

At a baseline of ten people per group, the boat would move very slightly, sliding across the picture. The result was imperceptible to mortals. We swapped group two out for halfbloods, and they saw the movement.

With increasing quantity of group one, there was an increasing quality of motion. The sails of the boat would fill and dip, and the waves would rock the boat. If you look at this table, you can observe the effects…

* * *

(Excerpt from journal Bible found in Camp Gilead break room.)

6/10/12

I was hoping Teresa wouldn't beat Leo, but apparently such things are too much to hope for. I didn't even realize it happened until he showed up at the reception building with his hands all maimed. I asked if he was okay and he told me he didn't need my help, though with fewer words.

I had a momentary impulse to tell him he got what he deserved, but I managed to stop myself.

Mary, forgive me for thinking these things. I look at Leo and I think

Well, I SHOULD think of the prodigal son. The quintessential man fallen from God. I shouldn't judge him so harshly for wandering off. I don't know what he went through at that Camp Half-Blood. I mean just listen to the name. Sounds haunted just saying it.

It sucks that I feel so angry at him. When somebody's going through a hard time, you gotta love them and you gotta care for them. In the end that's all any of us are trying to do. Punishment is care, in a lot of ways. It's how you know what you're doing is wrong. We're just looking out for him.

Anyway, I'm out of aloe, so now I'm using mouthwash. It doesn't hurt as bad now, though the bleeding is still pretty heavy.

(Next to this passage, 2 Corinthians 1:7 is highlighted.)

* * *

(Found in pink flower print diary under Cabin 5 mattress, Camp Gilead.)

Dear diary,

I'm finished with one glove and I'm trying to find time to knit the other. Normally I slow down and enjoy the process, but the gloves he wears now are coming to pieces!

Something about that boy who was baptized this morning has his jimmies rustled. I sat next to the new guy this morning and he told me to stay away from him.

Odd. Real odd, even for him.

* * *

(Found in chicken coop, Camp Gilead.)

DAY 316

YEAH, I STILL DON'T TRUST HIM

* * *

(Found in Nancy Bobofit's pocket.)

Dear Jesus or God or Abraham or whatever,

My old math teacher useta say that if you feel real bad you should write it down insteada saying it so that's what I'll do. Names don't even matter because this ain't a real letter I'll send to anybody. I'll provably use it to keep track a my books.

A guy I saw here like five years ago came back and has a bunch of shit in his belt. Don't know where he gets it but it's exciting to have a partner in crime maybe. He went to some camp I heard about at yancy when I was going through this one kids clothes. Gary or whatever.

Funny I can barely remember his name. Actually that whole years fuzzy. My head hurts just tryna remember my math teacher. I know she liked me but that's about it.

Ezra is still fuckin stupid as far as flirting goes. The only thing that could get his attention is if I shoved 2 halfs of a bible in my bra.

Like one testament in each boob. Hell yeah

INVENTORY

1 Twilight eclipse (from that chick with the small nose)

2 Weed (from chicken coop)

1 box of Viagra (from dumpster behind chapel)

* * *

(Found slid under Cabin 1 door, Camp Half-Blood.)

Please get back to me about a course of action regarding the event that occurred at the ball. I can arrange for Clovis to retrieve lost memories. I just need your green light.

Will

* * *

(Found in a wastebasket in Cabin 1, Camp Half-Blood.)

Dear Thalia,

Hey, sis, how's the Hunters? Things are going great in camp. Well, not great because Leo got kidnapped and it's

I know I let you down but I think I need help

I'm afraid that

Please forgive me but

Sorry

(Remainder is smudged to illegibility.)

* * *

(Found under a pillow in Cabin 6, Camp Gilead.)

Everyone,

I don't like starting these things off with exaggerations, but I'm basically fucked. If something happens to me, consider this my will. I'll leave Festus to all of you at Camp Half-Blood. A metal dragon is way too bitchin' to leave to only one person, and who knows when you'll need him?

Jason,

To you I leave Buford, my table. Please remember to use Lemon Pledge, and if not, don't put anything important in him. Like explosives. Or, I don't know, a helmet. Actually if there's a helmet lying around wear it. Consider that my last request.

Piper,

I took my toolbelt with me, but if you ever find my body you can have it. If not, go to the bunker and grab basically any gun in there. They all shoot celestial bronze bullets and frankly I'm shocked that anyone would pass up a magic shotgun.

Percy,

You are getting any empty coke bottles I left behind and my best pair of bolt cutters. Because even in death I cannot let that go.

Calypso,

Oh (smudged) crying

This was supposed to be a joke. Damn it. (Illegible.)

Nico,

(Illegible) to the last few days and I keep looping back to you. A lot of people (smudged) and I don't treat you great either, but sometimes I think you're a better person than I am. You're scary sometimes but under the hood you're (illegible) and nice and I'm scared one day I'll open my own hood and there's just nothing.

Fuck, they're not gonna send this anyway

(Remainder is scribbled out.)

* * *

(Found in "shred" pile in Camp Gilead reception building.)

Dear Leo,

I know we don't know each other that well, but I just want to make sure you're okay.

I don't know if they'll let you read this. I hope they will. We're doing our best to make this right, so just hang in there.

Sincerely,

Nico di Angelo

* * *

(Found in Camp Half-Blood mailbox.)

Camp Gilead

 _Crafting God's mouthpieces_

To whom it may concern,

After receiving and reviewing your letter, we have elected to not release your correspondences to your camper at this time. This was a very difficult decision to make, but it was made necessary due to these criteria:

· Inappropriate camper behavior

· Inappropriate letter content

· Sender is not the camper's legal guardian

As such, your letter will be held at the Camp Gilead office indefinitely. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,

Father Abraham Hill

Camp Gilead Youth Pastor


End file.
